


Prison cell

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: The English job [8]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And they're broken, Angry Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, But Strange is not Sherlock Holmes, Everett Ross is John Watson, M/M, Sherlock is dead, Top Strange, it's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:46:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: When Sherlock dies, this time for real, John leaves his old life behind and assumes the identity of Everett Ross, but Destiny put Doctor Strange on his path.Vietnamese translation available here by Vincent177a





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another story inspired by [this post](http://sherlockspeare.tumblr.com/post/148000306004/sherlock-x-doctor-strange-crossover-in-which-john) by Sherlockspeare.

When someone says to deputy commander Everett Ross that there is a new vigilante in town, he thinks of it just as a new, annoying work assignment.

That before opening the file of Doctor Strange and seeing his photo.

He shakes visibly, and then runs to the loo to throw up, grateful to be alone in his office, so he doesn’t humiliate himself in front of anybody.

The similarity with _him_ is uncanny, so much that it’s hard to believe that is just a coincidence: he requires an immediate in-depth research on the sorcerer, demanding to know everything about Stephen Strange, and although the investigation doesn’t reveal any connection with _him_ , no relation albeit distant, the sense of unease and anxiety never left him.

Why, why the fate continues to torture him like that?

  


After Sherlock's death, this time painfully real and immutable, John Watson has accepted Mycroft’s offer: a new life for him, a new identity and a new job in the CIA, the possibility to delete the past, make a clean sweep, leave everything behind, forget and start over from scratch with a job that would keep him constantly busy. He didn’t hesitate for a moment before accepting, only asking where he should sign and when he could leave.

Mary, standing beside him, for once refrained from commenting with her pedantic tone, as she was well aware that her past and her unresolved problems brought Sherlock in the grave. This time she didn’t physically pull the trigger, and that’s the reason why she’s still alive, but Sherlock has made the supreme sacrifice to protect the Watson family, again.

Even Mary and her daughter (David’s daughter) would have a new life, but John wasn’t interested in the least to know their destiny, and left Mycroft’s office without looking back; when he got on a plane to New York John Watson was gone, and in his place there was Everett Ross. Although, to be honest, John Watson was already dead when he had to identify Sherlock’s battered body lying on the morgue table.

  


The first task of Everett Ross was a diplomatic mission in the Kingdom of Wakanda, where he met King T'Chaka and Prince T'Challa, who became immediately a good friend of him.

T'Challa admires the tireless effort that Ross put in the work, his self control, how he’s able to keep a cool head in a crisis, the smartness and the determination with which he takes vital decisions. Although the deputy commander never talks about himself and his past, the young King understands that he has a strong military background, but there’s more: there is something in his detachment and in the lucid calm with which he gives the orders, that tells that this man has no one, no important persons in his life and therefore nothing that distracts him from his purposes. Perhaps once he had someone, but not anymore, and T'Challa understands that here is traced the boundary of their friendship, too: Ross will not allow him to go further and find out more about him, and he knows how to respect that boundary.

However there is very little of the calm and sober commander in the man who is yelling angry orders to his subordinates, the day when T'Challa enters his office in New York.

"Everett, is it a bad time?" He asks, openly surprised.

Ross puts his hands on his hips and breathes deeply once, twice, three times to calm down. "Forgive me. There seems to be a new superhero in town.”

"The Sorcerer Supreme, yeah, I heard about it."

"We just needed this Harry Potter style devilry, as if we had not already enough of egomaniac billionaires, gym freak aliens, mad scientists and genetically modified soldiers."

"Don’t underestimate the magic, Everett, it's an ancient and powerful force that exists on Earth since before the appearance of mankind,” he warns.

"Oh, great! Another dark force that could destroy us all!"

T'Challa slightly bends his head to express his dissent. "A force is a force, and can do harm as well as good, it all depends on who uses it. For example, many centuries ago there were sorcerers to defend Wakanda.”

"Well, we will discover immediately the intentions of this Doctor Strange, because my men are going to arrest him."

"Why?"

"For the fuss he caused: he will remain in custody until I have a full picture of the situation."

The king doesn’t say anything, but he understands that this time is different for Ross: he’s not applying a protocol or an international accord, there is something deeply personal in this for him.

"But enough talking about Strange” Ross says “What brings you here?"

"I’ll be in New York  for a few days for business. Look, we can meet for a brunch one of these days.”

"Willingly."

 

Strange doesn’t resist the arrest: he knows that if he does, the sanctuaries will suffer the consequences, and the Sorcerer Supreme has to worry first and foremost of the safety of the sanctuaries and the ancient knowledge that they guard. Wong tries to protest, but calms down when see Strange bringing with him the sling ring and the Cloak of levitation, which currently seems just a harmless, albeit quirky, piece of clothing.

Strange is locked in an electrified cell, it is given a hot meal, and shortly after Ross appeared in front of him, alone. Without looking at him, the deputy commander rattles off a whole series of facts about his life and the car crash that changed it for good, then closes the manila folder with a curt gesture.

"Tell me, colleague, have you lost the use of reason as well as the one of hands? That's why you joined a bunch of people that causes destruction everywhere?”

"I’m not part of the Avengers."

"Are you sure?"

Strange gives him a cocky smile.

"Absolutely: I haven’t received cookies or a welcome basket.”

Unfortunately his joke has the only effect to unnerve his interlocutor. Damn! And yet he was sure of being a funny guy.

"You'll stay here until I decide if you are a threat to global security."

"I’m not” Strange proclaims, serious again “We both want the same thing, save and protect the planet. Can I ask you to trust me, colleague?”

Ross pales.

"How did you call me?" He hisses.

Strange is confused by his reaction and shrugs. "Colleague. You said before that you are, or should I say you were, a doctor, and in any case I knew it from what you said about my surgeries: only a doctor knows some details.”

Ross instinctively moves back a step: he didn’t realize that he called himself a doctor, he betrayed himself, he failed to keep calm in front of that face and hate him for this. He bites his lower lip and then says in a deadly voice: "Touch the walls of his cell and you’ll be electrocuted, try any of your magician tricks and you’ll be electrocuted, piss me in any way and you’ll be electrocuted. Anything to say about it?"

"Now I know how it feel to be a witch at the stake in the Middle Ages."

Ross turns on his heel and left the prison, chased by Strange’s protests.

"Oh, come on! That was fun."

Maybe.

Marginally.

One of his subordinates materializes by his side.

"Boss, what other investigations we have to do on Doctor Strange?"

"I’ll let you know."

"All right. When?"

"There's no hurry."

"But sir, hold him without charges and without proofs-"

"I don’t care."

As long as he’s there, he can’t cause damage.

And he can’t be killed.

 

Ross knows he can’t stall indefinitely: as soon as Tony Stark learned about Strange’s arrest, made him know that it violates the Accords, and threatened to overwhelm him with a tsunami of lawyers, but for now Ross simply ignores everyone.

He knows that Strange is not _him_ , there is nothing, in his attitude or history, that remembers _him_ , save for the face, that drags him back into a pain that he believed forgotten for good. _Him_ , so he says since he became Everett Ross, he doesn’t call _him_ by name anymore, because he hoped that erasing his name would have erased every memory of him.

And yet...

After their first meeting, Ross doesn’t visit Strange anymore, merely observing him from the monitor in the control room: Strange is a model prisoner, he just asks books after books, and reads or meditates all the time. Every so often he levitates cross-legged in the middle of the small cell and smiles toward the camera, the exhibitionist, but Ross is not impressed by his performance.

No, not even a little.

 

Ross kicks off his shoes and takes off his tie, pours himself a whiskey without ice and indulges in an armchair, watching the bright lights of New York that shine out of the windows of his penthouse. He usually loves that view, it was the first thing that struck him when he got there, but tonight each of those lights illuminates a flat, and inside every flat there is a story of ordinary people who come home after a long day at work, there are smiles, "welcome home", embraces, warmth.

And it makes him feel alone.

He searches through the playlist on his phone and a moment later the notes of _Have you ever seen the rain_ fill the silence of the room.

"Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970, from the album Pendulum, the last with Tom Forgety, as well as the penultimate of the band" lets him know a deep voice from somewhere in the room.

Ross lets the glass falling on the floor and extracts the gun he always carries with him, pointing it at the entrance of the flat, but there is no one there.

"Why you all have to react like that?"

The voice comes from above, and when Ross looks up, he meets the semi-transparent figure of Doctor Strange that emerges from the ceiling; without thinking too much, he unloads the magazine against him, but the bullets obviously pass through the figure.

"No, no, no, stop! The partitions in these modern houses are made of tissue paper, you'll end up hitting someone."

"How the hell did you escape? And what are you now?" He shouts.

Strange smiles again and Ross would like to strangle him, if only it had a sense to strangle a ghost.

"Technically I didn’t escape, my body is still in the cell, this is just my astral form."

"I don’t want to listen to your bullshit!" Ross leaves the house like a fury and asks to be brought to the prison at light speed.

"Heck. Bargaining with Dormammu was a walk, compared to this." The astral form of Strange sighs and scratches his head, then retreats back into his body, in time to see Ross giving a piece of his mind to a stunned guard.

"Sir, I assure you that the prisoner didn’t move, check him..."

"Shut up! You’re lucky if I don’t send you to control the monkeys at the zoo!"

"The poor man is right” Strange intervenes “As I said, my body didn’t move from here, and the astral form is only visible under certain conditions."

The deputy commander puts his hand on the switch that releases the electrical shot.

"Give me one good reason to not fry you right now."

Strange opens his arms with seraphic calm, and again Ross is tempted by the violent desire to hurt him physically.

"You said you wanted to find out what I can do, but in three days no one has showed up to question me or anything, so I thought to give you a demonstration."

"How do you know where I live?"

"Things work differently on the astral plane, but it's too complicated to explain in words. I can give you a practical demonstration, if you want."

"No, I don’t” Ross says, now calmer “And this... don’t do it ever again, do you understand?”

"If I have rules to follow as a prisoner, it would be nice to know them beforehand."

"I'll get you the complete rules of this prison, don’t worry” He turns and walks purposefully toward the exit, then hangs on the door.

“And anyway Pendulum is the latest album by Creedence Clearwater Revival."

"Nope, it’s the penultimate, the last one is Mardi Gras, 1972, although it’s not very good. Check, if you don’t believe me."

Ross closes violently the door behind him.

Once back home again, he checks on Wikipedia: Strange is right, of course.

There, he found something in which they’re the same: they both want to have the last word and are always right.

He doesn’t know if it makes Strange more hateful, or...

Or.

"I like him" Strange whispers lying on the cot, apparently to no one. The cloak that covers him moves imperceptibly. "Mind it, he's terribly short-tempered, but he’s not the dull bureaucrat I thought he was, he's a complicated man, much more complicated than what appears.” He folds his arms behind his head “Everett Ross, who you really are?"

 

"I'd invite you out for that brunch” T'Challa says, leaning against the door of his office “but given your expression, I'm afraid your stomach is too close to eat."

The stormy face of the deputy commander tells much of his current mood, but when he sees T’Challa, he relaxes slightly and smiles.

"I have so much acid in the stomach that I’d digest everything all at once, instead."

"Problems with the Sorcerer Supreme?"

"Let’s say he gave me a taste of what he’s capable of doing."

"And would it be?"

"Can you believe it? He can be separated from his body and roam wherever he pleases."

"The astral plane" T'Challa says, then laughs in front of bewildered expression of his friend. "Don’t make that face: as I told you, the Kingdom of Wakanda is no stranger to mysticism and magic. But if that's what worries you, your fears are unfounded: what happens on the astral plane has no effect on physical reality."

Ross shakes his head.

"I don’t know... how can I trust him?"

The King of Wakanda doesn’t think that Ross is talking about the planet's safety.

"May I speak with him?"

"Sure, but why?"

"He intrigues me as well."

The Sorcerer recognizes the King of Wakanda and greets him with a polite bow.

"King T'Challa, forgive me if I don’t shake your hand" Strange jokes, alluding to the electrified cell.

"You are very different from your predecessor."

"Why I feel that it is a criticism to my sense of humor?"

T'Challa smiles, as he tries to understand the man in front of him, and what makes Ross so infuriated.

"They treat you right?"

"Apart from the lack of air hour, I can’t complain."

"You could go away at any time and disappear, so why you don’t do it?"

"I fear to cause a stroke to our mutual acquaintance: you know, I was a doctor and I have a conscience, I can’t let that happen."

"Doctor Strange, if I may ask you: go easy on him, is a very bitter man."

"Going easy? Me? If you didn’t notice, I'm the one who is locked in a cell."

"I'm not sure about that," and with these words, the young king of Wakanda takes his leave, leaving Strange alone to reflect on those words.

 

The next evening, Ross has a less visceral reaction, because the entry of Strange is anticipated by a circle of golden light in his living room, and therefore he’s prepared.

But it’s not the astral form of Strange who appears before him, it’s him in the flesh.

"I have a question” the sorcerer begins, raising his arm “Do I violate prison rules even if after I go back to my cell?"

"If you really want me to shoot you, you have only to ask."

"Then I was right."

"On what?"

"You have a problem with me. I don’t know why, since we have never met before, but it’s obvious. I chose to give up the life I had to protect this world and now I want to know why it bothers you so much."

 _"Because you're going to be killed as well"_ is what Ross thinks, but what comes out of his mouth is a poisonous: "Do you want to know? I have a problem with people who end up destroying entire cities!"

"I never did that!" Strange tried to understand the man in front of him, he didn’t think of anything else for four days, but he lacks too many pieces of the puzzle, and Ross doesn’t seem inclined to help him. "Okay, what do you say if we resolve it the old fashioned way?"

"What do you mean?"

Strange raises his arms and slowly moves his hands in the air; Ross follows his movements, fascinated, but all of a sudden the space around them is deformed, as if dozens of mirrors and transparent fragments of glass appeared from nowhere.

"What the fuck did you do?" Ross asks, pointing the gun at Strange.

"Hey, go easy with that, this time you could hurt me seriously."

"Answer me!"

"We are in the mirror dimension: at the sanctuary we use it to train and to practice with magic and incantations, because everything that happens in here haven’t consequences in the physical world: here is born, here dies, here is confined."

"So what?"

"Nothing stops you, you can say and do whatever you want, and I think it's time to resolve our conflict."

Strange assumes a posture of defense and Ross looks at him incredulously: "Do you want to fight?"

"If it helps, why not?"

Why not, indeed? Since the first time Ross met him, a part of him held the irrational desire to do it.

"All right, but you'll regret it." Ross pulls out the magazine from the gun and throws everything into a corner, then approaches his opponent and studies him: he could be a powerful sorcerer, but doesn’t understand a lot about boxing, he’s to still on his legs and his guard is too high. Beating him will be a child’s play.

However, when Ross throws the first punch, a circle of energy, consisting of arcane symbols, appears around Strange hand to protect him. It doesn’t burn and doesn’t hurt, but repulses him.

"What the fuck..."

"I never said that I wouldn’t have defended myself, deputy commander" Strange observes with one of his smiles that make him so angry.

A thought strikes Ross suddenly: of course he will defend himself, Strange is not _him_ , who accepts his fists on the face and his hands around the neck without reacting, he’s not _him_ at all, even though he has the same eye color and a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. Ross attacks Strange again, taking advantage of all the fighting techniques that he knows, and finally manages to hit him in the stomach.

Strange collapses with a grimace of pain and the Cloak, until then draped on his shoulders, waves threatening.

"No!" Strange exclaims, firmly, and the Cloak falls to the ground.

"You're holding back?" Ross growls, baring his teeth.

"I was a doctor and I still believe in that oath: I don’t want to hurt you seriously unless it’s absolutely necessary. Which it is so very difficult to understand, colleague?"

"Don’t call me like that!" Ross thunders and throws himself at him: he’s no longer a doctor, that life is over and buried, and Strange has no right to bring it to the surface again.

They roll on the floor, kicking, slapping, scratching, Ross even bites him on the arm, until Strange has the upper hand and block Ross under him; they look at each other, out of breath, eyes ablaze, and a moment later, inexplicably, they’re kissing as if there were no tomorrow, with no tenderness, no finesse, initially still with anger, then with an equally fiery feeling. Ross struggles, seeking to overthrow their positions, bites his lips, but Strange keeps him blocked on the floor, strong, unrelenting, and continues to kiss him and kiss him, without mercy.

He stops only when his hands glide over Ross shirt and try to open the buttons, but they tremble too much: the trauma of the car crash has left them unable to perform such precise movements.

"Shit," he hisses, raising himself on his elbows.

Strange’s defenses are lowered, Ross could wriggle free and kill him with his fists, because everything would remain confined to the mirror dimension. He could, nothing would stop him. Instead he puts his own hands on his shirt and began to unbutton it with lucid calm, while Strange looks at him in disbelief.

"Move" Ross mutters as he sits up to take off his shirt and trousers, then rudely grabs Strange’s tunic and pulls, without many results.

"How the hell you remove this thing? Can’t you wear regular clothes like everybody else?"

Strange knows that this is wrong, he should stop him, instead he shows how to do, and Ross strips him, then he draws Strange close to him and hisses in his ear: "Go ahead, do your worst", and Strange is raging: he should go and leave him locked in the mirror dimension alone, perhaps forever, because Ross is using him to get hurt, to hurt them both, and he doesn’t understand why, he didn’t do anything...

"Go ahead," Ross repeats, but this time it sounds more like a plea and Strange surrenders, lays him back on the floor and begins a slow exploration of his body: he bites his chin and Adam's apple, the collarbones, while his fingers squeeze a nipple, torturing him.

Ross groans without restraint, as no one can see or hear them in that dimension; Strange has said that what happens there has no consequences outside, and although the thought makes him feel a bit  like a coward, he shoves a hand into Strange’s hair and pushes him down.

"Do it" Ross orders in a hoarse voice, and the other one slides between his thighs.

It wouldn’t have been like that with _him_ : _he_ had never had any relationship, _he_ was a virgin and wouldn’t have known what to do. Strange is not like that: he’s clever, even experienced, knows how to please a man, licking his glans, sliding slowly his lips around the crown and gripping his heavy testicles with the other hand.

Ross hates Strange because he’s like _him_ , hates him because he has nothing of _him_ , hates him because he has never felt so confused and he would like to tell him, but all that slips from his lips is a breathless "Yes, please."

Strange doesn’t need to be begged in truth, because he seems more than determined to take Ross to heaven: he teases the frenulum with his tongue, masturbates him keeping the touch of his hand slow and light, never giving him full satisfaction, then suddenly he takes it into his mouth again, almost to the root, and sucks hard.

"God" is the curse that escapes from Ross lips, and soon after Strange lets him go.

"I prefer Sorcerer Supreme, if you please."

"Bastard."

"Also," he chuckles, biting on his neck.

Strange lies on him and stops: he awaits a nod, a gesture, a word, anything from him, because they are dangerously close to the point of no return, and Ross spreads his legs to accommodate him; their cocks slide over one another, and without lubricant is almost painful, but after all they are not making love, it's just sex, a relief after days of unreleased tension, a screw in a hidden space outside of reality, and yet it’s terribly real when the orgasm explodes suddenly and he clings on Strange shoulders.

The sorcerer rolls on his back, still breathing hard, their fingers brushed for a second and Ross, upset, moves away his hand.

The silence, thick and viscous, expands between them.

"Go back to your cell," Ross murmured, eyes closed. He hears him retrieve his clothes and get dressed, then nothing. When he opens his eyes, the mirror dimension has disappeared, Strange is gone and he is alone.

"Shit," he mutters, covering his eyes with his arm.

Once back in his cell, the Cloak of Levitation slips from his shoulders and moves to a corner of the cell. Is it possible for a Cloak to cross its arms across the chest? Apparently yes, because this is what it’s doing, while it seems to ask what the hell Strange was thinking.

"I just want him to believe me," Strange murmurs, sitting down on the bed.

"Bullshit," the Cloak seems to answer, floating slowly.

 

"I'll be back to Wakanda" T’Challa announces the next day, when he and Ross are sitting at a table of Lafayette. The deputy commander has hardly touched his food, has replied in monosyllables to all his attempts at conversation and he has looked out the window all the time.

"Why? I thought you'd stop a few more days."

"Yes, but I prefer to deal with Vibranium traffickers rather than with this."

Ross hangs his fork in mid-air. "This what?"

The other shakes his head. "It doesn’t matter."

Before returning to his Country, he goes one last time to the prison.

"And I asked you to go easy on him."

Strange doesn’t raise his eyes from the book he is reading and doesn’t answer. The King of Wakanda is right, but neither Ross went easy on him.

Although Strange promised to Ross to stop using his astral form, it is equally true that they’re holding him there in a not entirely legal way, so he doesn’t feel guilty to do it again. Unseen by anyone, his astral form observes Ross, who, alone, makes the work of three people, delegating few things and only unimportant details, and strictly controls what the others are doing, not very differently from the way he was in the operating room. But every now and then the deputy commander stops and looks at the monitor that transmits the images from his cell. His expression is unreadable.

 

He’s not waiting for him, he tells himself, he took a shower, the stereo is playing _Fly by night_ , but he is not waiting for him. Also, it would be better and much wiser if what happened the night before doesn’t happen again, but it seems that common sense doesn’t belong to either of them, because Strange appears in his penthouse just like the night before.

"Rush, 1975” Strange says, listening to the music “An unusual choice."

Ross is wearing a robe, so when Strange approaches him, he only has to untie the knot of the belt to make it slip away from his shoulders, but Ross says one last time to himself that he wasn’t waiting for him.

They don’t talk, so they haven’t to make up excuses and lies, nor give explanations on why the prisoner and the jailer have ended up having sex.

This time there is a bottle of lubricant on the bed, even though he wasn’t waiting for him; Ross gets on all fours and wait for the other man to take the hint. Strange puts his hands on his hips and they’re shaking, but that's normal, right? His hands are shaking all the time, it’s not for what they are going to do, right?

"I'm clean" Strange whispers.

"I didn’t expect anything different from a doctor” Ross murmured, leaning his head on the mattress, then he realizes that it is the wrong answer “I am too."

Strange is kind, perhaps too much for his taste, because the less it hurts, the less it seems wrong, and Ross needs for it to continue to seem wrong, to seem that it’s just sex, but he can do nothing right now: Strange holds him firmly by the hips and is slipping inside him with a maddening slow pace, so Ross isn’t ready for the wave of pleasure that submerges him when the tip of Strange’s cock brush up against his prostate.

"Again!" He yells uncontrollably, and Strange comes out of him and then in again, firmly, over and over again, touching that bundle of nerves every time, pushing harder and harder, out of control, and it’s so glorious that Ross comes without touching himself, then arms and legs don’t hold him up anymore and he collapses on the mattress, dragging Strange with him.

"Everett..." he murmurs, kissing his neck.

His name on those lips sounds weird, almost sweet, he’s not used to it, but he can allow it, right? As long as they are there.

"Everett" he repeats, moving his lips on his shoulders.

"You still have to go back to your cell."

"Just give me a moment."

"All right."

Now, with Strange lying on him and his semen dripping between his thighs, it’s difficult to think that what happens in the mirror dimension has no effect outside.

 

Stark has realized his threat to bury them with lawyers, so Everett Ross is forced to grant to Dr. Christine Palmer the permission to visit Strange.

Obviously Ross has read in his file that she is the former girlfriend of the neurosurgeon, and watches them through the monitor in the control room.

Palmer strokes his hair, takes his hands in hers and kisses him on the cheek; Ross clenches his fists so hard he sticks nails into the palms, and wonders if _he_ felt like that, when _he_ looked at John and Mary dancing at their wedding. It's a horrible, nauseous feeling, and Ross wonders how _he_ could bear it in silence, without ever saying anything.

"I'm going back to my office," he announces to his subordinates.

"And what should we do with Dr. Palmer?"

"Make sure she doesn’t give him a nail file hidden in a loaf, maybe" he spits sarcastically and slams the door behind him.

"They can’t keep you here all this time without any charge!" Christine exclaimed, upset.

"I don’t know if you've noticed, but this is a slightly unusual prison, for unusual prisoners."

"But Mr. Stark lawyers say that-"

"Christine, it's all right: Ross is responsible for the execution of the Sokovia Accords, he worries about the safety of the planet and just needs to be sure that I don’t represent a danger to anyone."

"You're defending him, seriously?" she asks, bewildered.

"He's just doing his job."

"You have saved the planet, you're not a criminal, how can’t he trust you?"

"I realized that it is difficult for him to trust someone, he needs time."

Christine folds her arms over her chest and twists her lips into an incredulous smile. "You... now who is the one with the Nightingale syndrome?"

"It’s not like that!" Stephen objects vehemently, and Christine let go of his hands, watching him carefully.

"Yeah, it’s not, it is much more."

"Christine..."

"It's all right, just... be careful, Stephen."

That night Ross assaults him like a maniac as Strange sets foot in his flat, slamming him hard against the wall, as if trying again to do fight him, and they hardly reach the bed in a messy tangle of limbs. Ross grabs him by the shoulders, blocks him on the mattress and rides him, never taking his eyes from Strange’s; he keeps it up for at least twenty minutes, getting angrier and angrier, but can’t reach orgasm, until Strange licks the palm of his right hand and wraps it around his erection.

In the end they are both exhausted, so much that they fall asleep suddenly without even clean up.

A few hours later, Ross wakes up with a start: he is still in the mirror dimension, with its floating shards of glass that transform his bedroom into a kaleidoscope.

"Who is Sherlock?” Strange whispers, sitting on the mattress “In your sleep you did say his name."

"Why are you still here?" Ross asks with the most annoyed voice he can gather. Moments later he’s alone again. He can be a right asshole when he wants to be.

The Cloak of levitation is so outraged by now that it doesn’t even go with Strange anymore in his nightly sorties, it lies curled up on the ground like a big snake and doesn’t move when he comes back in the cell. Instead of sitting on the bed, Strange slips to the ground beside it.

"I just want him to see me."

 

"Do you play any instruments?" Ross asks the night after, while he’s cleaning himself with a flannel, sitting on the edge of the bed. If they speak, it’s only after, so at least they can have their screw.

Strange stretches dramatically his trembling hands before him, and Ross looks over his shoulder.

"I think this answers your question."

"And before that?"

"No, I was never interested. Why do you ask? "

Ross shrugs. "You look like an expert in music."

"I'm just really good at storing data and concepts, while playing an instrument requires an artistic sensibility that I don’t possess."

 _"Even drawing complicated spells in the air requires considerable sensitivity"_ Ross would like to say, but Strange is the first to speak: "Sherlock was playing an instrument?"

Ross throws down the flannel in anger.

"You have to ask? Didn’t you go on the astral plane to find out everything about him?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it didn’t seem fair: this is not about the safety of the planet, it’s only about you, it's something personal and if you won’t tell, I'm not going to peep in your life."

"He's gone, he is part of the past and now I'm a different man, there is nothing to tell, and I kindly ask you to not talk about him anymore. Now-"

"I know, I'm leaving."

Actually Ross wanted to tell him to talk about something else, or to sleep if he was tired, he didn’t want him to leave that night, but he doesn’t know if he has the right to ask him to stay.

Strange is lying on the cot in his cell, his eyes wide open, staring at the wall, when he hears the Cloak crawling on him and hugging him in a silent peace offering.

He should look absolutely pathetic.

"I’ve done a load of self-destructive bullshits in my life, like that car crash” Strange whispers “but this is definitely the number one: I am in love with a man who sees in me someone else, and this someone is an elusive ghost. Find someone who has done worse than me."

 

Strange fell asleep on the bed immediately after sex and Ross is not surprised: there are dark circles under his eyes and he looks tired, like a man who hadn’t slept well the night before.

He didn’t rest well, too.

This can’t continue, they will eventually destroy each other, and this is not what Ross wants: a part of him really wanted to keep Strange safe, keeping him in prison, and instead he’s poisoning him night after night with his gall, taking from him whatever he wants, without giving anything in exchange.

Strange has done everything to accommodate and understand him, he brings them every night in a dimension where Ross can do whatever he wants without repercussions or consequences on his life.

Ross really doesn’t understand why the Sorcerer hasn’t yet thrown at an obscure Babylonian curse on him or something. He would deserve it, he thinks.

As Ross watches Strange’s hands, devastated by scars, understands one thing: the two of them are pretty darn similar. Strange had his life capsized, too, he had to pick up the pieces and start over from scratch. They’re two survivors, but unlike him, Strange didn’t stagnate in a pathetic self-pity.

Christ… he behaved horribly with Strange, to the point of being disgusted with himself.

The only fault of Strange is to look like _him,_ and it's not a fucking fault, it is a fact, and Ross can not, he must not pour his bitterness on him.

That’s enough.

Ross gets closer to him, slowly, places a light kiss on the back of Strange’s right hand, and then, for the first time, he murmurs his name, "Stephen", then closes his eyes.

 

Ross is on the roof of his building, sitting on the concrete, and looks up toward the clouds swollen with rain; it's cold and he only wears a light jacket, the wind blows strong and sharp and the noise of the city are so muffled that if he closes his eyes he can easily imagine to be in another place, in a cemetery in London, for example, where he can’t go anymore, because the documents he signed in Mycroft’s office say that he can’t have any more contact with his past.

The problem is that he hasn’t left everything behind, not for real, there’s a burden on his back, although he pretended not to see it, and for a while he deceived himself, at least until Stephen has arrived.

"Hello Sherlock” he says, looking up to the sky “It's been so long since the last time I spoke, or even just thought about your name, because I always behave like that: I hide the pain for not being forced to deal with it, I pretend the hurt is gone and I go on with my life. For a while it's all right, thinking about the safety of the planet keeps me very busy, then one day this man appears, he resembles you like a drop of water, and my beautiful illusion collapses.

Except that, as usual, I don’t admit it, I prefer to blame him, I use him to vent my pathetic frustrations, and the worst thing is that he let me. In this he’s somewhat like you, you know? But Stephen doesn’t deserve what I've done to him so far: he is an extraordinary man, has a good taste in music, but a terrible sense of humor, and I think I'm in love with him, a bit, because he has touched something in deep inside of me, something I thought no longer existed.

Of course I denied this too, and tried to hurt him in any way, because you are dead, and I haven’t done anything to prevent it, so I wanted to continue to punish me forever, sabotaging any chance to be happy again, but last night I realized that I want this second chance with him, I want him, I want to try it although it will be a mess, because he is a Sorcerer supreme, nothing less, and I theoretically should check that he doesn’t bring destruction around the world, and I know that it will be complicated, but I want it.

But to do that, I have to leave behind the past, this time for real, I have to... I have to admit out loud that you're dead, that you're not coming back again, and I can’t help it, and move on with my life.

Thank you for everything you have done for me, it was much more than I deserved, and I should have told you when you were still alive.

Goodbye Sherlock, my lost love. "

 

That evening Ross waits for him sitting on the bed, impatient and a little nervous, looking at his watch, repeating again in a low voice the speech that he had prepared.

Strange arrives and, without saying anything, raises his hands to move them to the mirror dimension, but Ross stops him shaking his head.

"I don’t want to go in the mirror dimension again" he proclaims solemnly.

"I see," Stephen murmurs. He’s telling him that it's over, right? He should have expected it, he was only deluding himself hoping that among them there was something more than sex, when it’s clear that for Ross there’ll be anyone else after Sherlock. He should be angry with Ross for being used as bed warmer for those nights, but he can’t hate him: talking about family life has been kind to him, his parents are still alive and has never lost a loved one, so he can’t understand the pain Ross is feeling. But he is happy that no one can read his mind at that moment, because the fact that he is justifying the man who broke his heart says a lot about the pathetic heights he has reached.

Unaware of his inner turmoil, Ross smiles a little and opens his mouth to speak, but Strange precedes him: "Will you let me do one last thing for you? I hope it can help you."

Ross becomes confused. "Last? What are you talking about?"

Strange raises a hand and put his thumb rests on Ross forehead.

Ross feels like he has been thrown out of his body and sucked into a tunnel of psychedelic colors, torn apart, broken up into thousands of fragments, each one with its own lives and then reassembled again, as he falls, falls and falls into infinity, crosses alien galaxies and the gas clouds incubators of stars; at the beginning it's just panic, he screams and squirms as he struggles in vain against the current of time and space, then he starts to see images around him, snapshots from other worlds, other realities.

Snapshots of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

He is a young rugby player at the peak of his career, he is bright and full of energy, while Sherlock is a ballet dancer, the grace incarnated. And they are in love.

He is the commander of a British Navy ship and Sherlock is a pirate and an adventurer, and when their paths cross, they fall in love.

He is a doctor in the Victorian age, but he is also the Sherlock Holmes biographer, the first and only consulting detective of the United Kingdom, and when they are behind the closed curtains of a carriage, Holmes leans towards him and kisses him. They must do everything secretly, quietly, but they are together once again, even in a society that could imprison them for their relationship.

He is still a soldier and Sherlock arrives in Afghanistan to investigate a series of heinous crimes. Twenty-four hours later, they’re lying on a bed, already speaking of their future together.

He is simply John Watson, his marriage has gone to hell, but Sherlock is still there, on the threshold of the 221B, welcomes him back in his life and this time even in his bed, saving him once again.

Mary has never existed, John and Sherlock have faced countless other hardships, but in the end they’re married and live happily their lives.

His marriage with Mary and his relationships with other women never last, in these countless other lives, John and Sherlock continue to come back together, like two celestial bodies that revolve around each other.

He is a successful novelist, now elderly, and in his cottage in Sussex he tends the garden and corrects the draft of his latest novel, while Sherlock checks the hives and the health of his bees. It's summer, it's a beautiful day, the sun warms his shoulders and back and they still love each other as the first day.

Then everything disappears and Everett Ross falls back to earth, in New York, in his penthouse, in his body, dazed and shaken.

"What was that?"

"The multiverse: there are places where what you have seen is true, it has happened and continues to happen right now."

If he was less shocked by what he has just happened, Ross would perceive that there is something weird in Stephen’s voice, but now he can just put his arms on his knees, hiding his face in the hands; he smiles like he didn’t do for a long time: not in this reality, but in other realities Sherlock survived, and they are happy.

"We are happy. God, we’re together and we’re happy" Ross murmurs with his eyes closed. He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, savoring the gift that Stephen has given to him, savoring the consolation that makes him feel lighter at heart, but when he lifts his face, his first thought is to thank him and hug him, but Strange is not more before him.

"Stephen?" Ross asks to the empty room. He gets up and searches for him in every room, but he is alone again, and he collapsed to the floor: he didn’t tell Strange the most important thing of all: that he no longer wanted to make love with him in the mirror dimension, that he doesn’t want anymore that their relationship is something hidden from reality, that he really wants to try, he wants all the repercussions and consequences that a relationship can bring, he wants to do it in broad daylight, in the reality that belongs to them.

But he didn’t say anything, once again, so Strange thought Ross had rejected him and he’s gone, like all the important things in his life, and Ross is not surprised to discover that this time Stephen didn’t returned to his cell.

"What should we do, send out another arrest warrant?" asks nervously one of his subordinates, who ran up to his house to warn him of what happened, and now fears his furious reaction.

"No."

"Sir?"

"Doctor Strange is not a threat to us. If anything, I'm a threat to him," he adds softly.

"Did you say something, sir?"

"Nothing. You can go."

Once left alone, he rests his head on the desk and sighs.

"Hey Sherlock, did you see how good I am in fucking up everything in my life? I deserve a medal."

But then something snaps inside him, and he says that no, it can’t end like this, he doesn’t want to end like that.

"Enough with self-pity, Everett Ross, do something!"

In the following days, Everett seeks him in the sanctuaries scattered around the earth, in the hospital where he worked before his accident, in his old flat, now empty, he has the audacity to send a team to check doctor Palmer’s house, he even starts to talk to himself when he's home, hoping that Stephen is hiding somewhere on the astral plane, and is listening to him, but Doctor Strange seems to have disappeared into thin air.

However he’s distracted from his research by a sudden crisis: 911 receive thousands calls from people terrorized by huge tentacles that emerge from manhole covers and sewer pipes, and while he’s trying to figure out what the hell's going on, he gets a call from Tony Stark.

"I know that the decision whether to call or not the Avengers is up to you, but we are faced with a possible alien invasion."

"Are you sure?"

"That, or a dish of molecular cuisine of Wylie Dufresne has gone horribly wrong."

Ross is not enthusiastic about it, the last time the Avengers have intervened it was a disaster, but Stark is right: they are the only ones who can deal with this crisis. Ross is about to sign the order, when Stark speaks again: "Have you already moved? I think we agreed to work as a team?"

"We haven’t done anything."

'Well, F.R.I.D.A.Y. is telling me that Doctor Strange was spotted between the 147th west and 7th, right where the most intense activity of the giant squid is reported. Haven’t you send him? Ross...? Deputy Commander Ross, do you hear me?"

But Ross is already out of the room and he’s driving at full speed toward the location; people who run away terrified in the opposite direction makes it clear that he is going in the right direction.

Suddenly a disgusting tentacle covered with yellowish mucous emerges from a sewer manhole, grab an abandoned shopping cart and throws it against his car, and Ross, to avoid it, crashes into a letterbox.

"Shit!" he curses; he checks that the gun is loaded, gets out and shoots four times against the monster, who retires quickly.

In the distance, he can see other tentacles, writhing furious, three times larger than the one he has hit, and before them there is Strange: he’s creating a spell to imprison them, sparks of every color sizzle in the air where the tentacles are in contact with the spells, then Strange extends his arms around him and the monster is sucked into a black vortex, which closes again without leaving a trace, if not some trash bins down to the ground.

Ross runs to him.

"Stephen!"

Strange turns, hearing his name, looks at him and open his arms: "Can you believe it? Some teens found - God know how - a book on the evocation of demons and tried to use it. Couldn’t they watch Youporn all day long like all teenagers?"

Strange smiles, but Ross doesn’t return it, still too shocked by what Strange has just done.

"Are you okay?" Ross asks, eyeing him from top to bottom, looking for wounds.

"Yeah sure, why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you just defeated a greenish monster made of tentacles."

"This is what I do to save the planet, I hope I’ve at least convinced you of this."

"About that..."

"I have to go, Everett, unless you intend to arrest me again."

"No, wait” Ross grabs him by the elbow, and although the Cloak moves nervously, he doesn’t let go “Please, wait."

"Why?"

"Because I want to apologize to you. Sherlock was the most important person in my life and you look so much like him, and this has destabilized me, even if it doesn’t justify the way I've treated you. I was an asshole, forgive me."

Strange is not saying anything, he is not even looking at him, and perhaps it’s too late, perhaps he was so thoroughly committed to sabotage their relationship that he succeeded. Slowly, Everett let his hand slip away from Stephen’s elbow, lingering a last moment with the tip of his fingers against the fabric.

"Bringing him back, after all this time, would break all the rules that govern space and time, but if you ask me..."

"Why?"

"For you."

"Oh..." Ross's heart skips a beat and his hand is back on the arm of the Sorcerer: he reflects seriously on his offer, but then he shakes his head. "John Watson would probably ask you to do it, but I am Everett Ross now, and I said goodbye to Sherlock."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I could do it thanks to you, and there's something important I need to tell you. I wanted to tell it the other night, but you disappeared into thin air."

"There was no place for me there."

"No, it is not like that, there is a place, all the place you want in my life, Stephen, and under the spotlights this time, not in the mirror dimension or somewhere else in the multiverse. Here. Now." He lifts his chin, proud of himself, and smiles: not a bad statement. And Strange seems to like it, because in a moment Everett finds himself in his arms.

Everett slides his arms around his shoulders and kissed him, first gently, slowly, savoring every moment of the push and pull of lips and tongues.

The Cloak of Levitation still hesitates a moment, then wraps both of them, shielding from prying eyes of passers-by and cameras.

"It will not be easy” Everett whispers inside their red cocoon “You are a superhero and I'm the one who should monitor you."

"I am the Sorcerer supreme, and before that I was a neurosurgeon who extracted bullets from the brains of people: if a challenge isn’t hard, it doesn’t interest me," Strange chuckles, resting his forehead on Ross one.

"And one of the first things to keep at bay is your ego" Ross murmured, raising on his toes to kiss him on the neck.

Being so close, Strange clearly felt Ross erection through his clothes.

"Ah, this doesn’t seem the best strategy to tame my ego."

"Shut up! Open one of your damned dimensional portal and take me home."


End file.
